"Forward" is a perfectly appropriate slogan for progressives. Progress suggests forward or upward motion. That's why revolutionaries and radicals as well as liberal incrementalists have always embraced some derivation of the forward trope.

You have to feel a little sorry for Team Obama as they squirm to explain why the question "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is so unfair. After all, there is only one way to answer it and retain any credibility.

Once upon a time, a man walked on the moon. He climbed down the ladder onto lunar soil, the first human being ever to do so. "That's one for small step for (a) man," he famously said, "one giant leap for mankind.

Today I've come to my secret spot to watch the moon set and think about the changing seasons. The calendar says autumn doesn't begin for another three weeks, but in my mind today marks the beginning of fall.

Todd Akin's idiocy appears to be infectious. The evil genius of the Missouri congressman's comments is they lend themselves to such broad interpretations - and misinterpretations. By now his remarks are familiar, but just in case .

In the past couple weeks we have seen once again, as if we needed the reminder, that our world is still a dangerous place. The horrific, robotic, random carnage in Aurora, Colo., shook a lot of people.

The people running the City of Amarillo animal shelter do a good job of dealing with other people's mistakes and stupidity, but still it bothers me that we have to euthanize so many cats and dogs. The city puts down thousands of dogs and cats each year.

Can we stop calling the hosts of the presidential debates "moderators"? They're left-erators. It's time for the old media godfathers to end the pretense that they're fair and neutral observers of the American political scene.

What happened to Chavis Carter? It is a pregnant question, potentially even an explosive one. Carter died of a gunshot wound to the temple on the last Saturday in July, but the question about his death has only grown louder and more urgent since then.

In Europe, especially in Germany, hoisting a swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers, who were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million people.

It was one of Barack Obama's best lines - and best moments - in the 2008 presidential campaign. He had said we could save as much oil as we could get from domestic drilling if everybody properly maintained their cars and got their tires inflated.

Before Nero fiddled, he meddled like others after him, divinely intervening in hopes of diverting decline. He debased currency to cope with flagging revenues. Successors did the same, and suffocated wealth with taxes. This might sound familiar.

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare"), NPR's "Talk of the Nation" held a seminar of sorts at the Aspen Institute's legendarily pretentious Ideas Festival.

Ordinarily, Texas policymakers and business leaders don't pay close attention to elections in other countries. But if not now, perhaps in the near future, Sunday's presidential contest in Mexico might be one of those exceptions. Here's why.

Dear Mitt Romney: I was pleased to hear that you have accepted an invitation to speak in July before the 103rd convention of the NAACP in Houston. In anticipation of that event, I have taken the liberty of writing a speech for you.

"With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations - immigrants brought here illegally as children - through executive order, that's just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.

Jeb Bush's recent field trip to Washington was not pleasant, but it was clarifying - a civics lesson in democracy's darker side. On June 1, Bush testified before the House Budget Committee on the topic of entitlement reform. First came an ambush by Rep.